West Point, PA
 West Point Feed House
West Point was named after Henry Moyer and E. K. Freed's "West Point Feed House".
 
Where was this feed house?? There is no mention of it in any historical texts. Instead, what we find are many references to Heebner and Kriebel’s feed mill and Mattern and Knerr’s hay press.

We know that Heebner’s Feed Mill was on the corner of Jones and Main, and the building still stands there today. It was built in 1877, about four years after the West Point Feed House was established. Therefore there is no connection between this building and the West Point Feed House.
 
We also know that Mattern and Knerr sold feed and coal in addition to dealing in hay, which means there were two feed houses in West Point in the 1870's. Could there be a connection between Moyer and Freed’s West Point feed house and Mattern and Knerr’s hay press?

Once again we can use some historical documents and an old map to help us figure things out.

Here are the historical facts:
 
In 1868 Henry W. Moyer entered into the milling business in North Wales with partner George Schlotterer. This arrangement lasted two years, at which time Elias K. Freed bought out Schlotterer’s interest. The new firm was called E.K. Freed and Co. with Moyer being the junior partner. Sometime around 1873 the West Point Feed House was built about a mile from the mill.

In 1881 Moyer sold his interest to E. K. Freed and purchased the West Point feed house as part of the deal. Meanwhile, Moyer's first wife had died in 1873. In 1878 he married again to Miss Adelaide Mattern. Moyer took on his brother-in-law, Lesher W. Mattern as a partner.
 
Henry Moyer died on December 7, 1904. At this point Lesher Mattern was the sole owner of the business. He took on as a partner Robert Knerr of Allentown, who had worked for 16 years at Lehigh-Portland Cement Company. Knerr bought the house at the corner of Garfield and Main (West Point Pike) and began making renovations and building an addition. He then moved his family to West Point from Allentown.

Moyer and Mattern then became Knerr and Mattern. Perhaps to outsmart the competition from Heebner and Kriebel, they became hay dealers in addition to running the feed and coal house. They were so successful they had to enlarge the hay shed in 1916 and were shipping hay as far as Connecticut, New York and Philadelphia by the (train) carload.

Now we have proven a direct connection between the E. K. Freed & Co. West Point Feed House and Knerr and Mattern’s feed house and hay press. It was the same building.

But where was it? Let’s look at an old map.
 
 
     There it is, on Cottage avenue! Knerr and Mattern's store and hay press, in plain sight of the train station and obvious to
     anyone coming down the dirt road that would one day be West Point Pike.

Let's zoom into the map and compare it with a modern Google map.

 

There is a building at the site of Knerr and Mattern's feed store / hay press.
We can't tell what it is, so let's walk down to cottage Avenue.
 
    Here is an old brick building. It had large arched windows that have been sealed up. It's in bad shape and the bricks
    need pointing. This must be it, the West Point Feed House!
 

 

 

 
This is the view from the rear.
 

This may be the most historic building in West Point.
It is on Cottage Avenue next to Shafer's Auto Body, and is part of Allied Concrete's property. These pictures
were taken in January of 2012. Allied Concrete seems to have vacated the property at this time.